I was temped to make a joke about poor Korean translations of Rosa Luxemburg, but the stories this week about Kim Jong Un ordering North Koreans to get government-approved “socialist haircuts” which were suspiciously like his seemed better than any lame puns I could invent (OK, maybe not the title of this post)

No sooner had the stories circulated than they were denied, and we all thought, ah, “North Korea is so wacky, it could be true, but I guess it’s not.” Except…

In 2004-2005, North Korea did wage a campaign entitled “Let us trim our hair in accordance with Socialist lifestyle” on Korean television. Apparently, the gist was that hair length affects intelligence because the body is deprived of nutrients due to hair length. Certainly funnier than allegedly having your uncle fed to a pack of starving dogs I guess.